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Mike Elson/USGS Coconino National ForestIn May the atmosphere’s concentration of carbon dioxide exceeded 430 parts per million for the first time in recorded history. That’s bad news for many ecosystems and for human communities and societies that rely on them. But there might be a silver lining for residents of the Southwest who like rainy summers. -
Mike Elson/USFS/Coconino National ForestRain comes when water molecules in the atmosphere clump together to form ice crystals or water droplets that are heavy enough to fall to the ground. But what causes that clumping to happen?
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Across the vast landscapes of the Colorado Plateau, one resilient plant has profoundly shaped people and land for many centuries: Indian ricegrass. -
Loggers worked nonstop during the Great Depression. One of the longest-standing logging communities was a place called Apex along the Grand Canyon Railway, north of Williams and near the Canyon’s South Rim. -
A cactus no bigger than a paperclip grows across the rocky eastern slopes of the Kaibab Plateau. Its thin, long spines protrude from its rotund body like a plump hedgehog. -
The Suckley’s cuckoo bumble bee has a unique life cycle. Like cuckoo birds, they lay their eggs in the nests of other species instead of rearing their own young. -
Monarch Butterflies fly thousands of miles every year between their southern overwintering grounds as far north as Canada and back. -
The vast Great Basin stretches west from the Colorado Plateau across much of Utah and Nevada. The region is so named because bodies of water drain inland with no outlet to the sea. -
It’s International Dark Sky Week, a worldwide celebration that was started in 2003 to raise awareness about light pollution. This year is the first time it’s come to Flagstaff. -
Footprints made tens of thousands of years ago may look like they’ve been erased by time and weather, but — like invisible ink — they can sometimes reappear under the right conditions. -
Pueblo Grande de Nevada — known as the "Lost City" — is an archeological site near Overton, Nevada. It’s a complex of villages inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans for nearly a thousand years. -
Artificial Intelligence is being applied to many areas of life, including forestry on the Colorado Plateau. A team at NAU is using AI models in conjunction with Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology.
